Google: Social Adjustment for Facebook
April 16, 2009
Social adjustment in my grade school meant suspension. Social adjustment in one of the prisons I visited for a client project meant kill a guy. When I read this Datamation article — “Inside Google’s Facebook Killer” here—I thought about social adjustment. Now the write up by Mike Elgan took a more aggressive approach to describing Google’s social initiative. The phrase was “Facebook killer.” Mr. Elgan wrote:
Starting today, you can choose a “vanity URL” of sorts, meaning you can use your Gmail address as part of your Google Profiles URL. (The URL used to use a long string of numbers.) For example, my new URL is: www.google.com/profiles/mike.elgan Looking at it now, you’d never guess that Google Profiles is the biggest potential threat to Facebook anywhere.
Mr. Elgan points out that Google’s death beam is not at full power. Nevertheless, it does seem as if the GOOG wants to hop on the social bandwagon. Microsoft has a stake in the Facebook property, and Google has been on the outside of the candy store looking in.
Mr. Elgan noted:
Google Profiles should include a major section that functions as a Twitter client. It would show all your incoming Tweets, and share them with your “friends” or contacts on Google Profiles. Alternatively, you should be able to show and share only the tweets sent by people on your contacts list. In other words, either your full Twitter stream or a subset of that stream, would serve as your “Wall Posts.” The end result of this integration would be a social network far better than Facebook. Rather than being a link dead-end like Facebook, Profiles would be a launching pad of discoverability for everything you want to promote.
These are good ideas. Several observations:
- If Google does kill Facebook, will anti trust forces swing into action?
- Will Google be able to generate revenue once the Facebook funeral is over?
- Will Facebook, Twitter, and their ecosystems sit on their hands and watch the spectacle?
Interesting. I wonder if I should start collecting write ups about Google that feature the noun “killer”? Seems like a popular word at this time. I prefer “social adjustment of Facebook and its ex Googlers in its ranks.” Gentler, nicer. Euphemistic.
Stephen Arnold, April 16, 2009
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